Nokia Snake

Strangely addictivegame found on several models of Nokiamobile phones, where a pixelated 'snake' controlled by the user, has to eat 'food', represented by dots on the screen. As you eat more food, the snake gets longer. If you hit a wall or the snake's tail, you lose. The fun of the game is rapidly reduced by the fact that the keyboard on the phones is terrible, making it difficult to perform maneuvers in small amounts of space.

After frequently playing the game on the 51xx, 61xx, 3210 and 8210 the 3210 became the phone of my choice. The keypad on that model is optimal for Snake, as keys require very little effort to press, and, although not as easy to hold as the 51xx and 61xx series, a higher score could be easier obtained on that phone.

The 3210 is very small, and as the manual says 'Do Not Shake or Bend the Phone' it's not very solid. The keys on that are responsive, but the small physical size attributes to some discomfort.

The only thing that the 51xx series and the 61xx series lack are a responsive keypad. This could probably be fixed by getting a custom keypad attached to the phone.

Keep in mind that this review was based on the fact that I only play on level 9, and as the speed decreases, other phone models may become more comfortable. The phones compared were all stock-standard Nokia phones with factory covers and keypads.

I use a Nokia 6150 and find the keypad much more suited to playing Nokia Snake than the membrane keypad of the 3210. Comparing the 3210 keypad to the 61xx is like comparing the 'keyboard' of the ZX81 with that of the ZX Spectrum (ie. they are both crap, but the former is crapper than the latter). Incidentally the Nokia 7110 is worse than either of the other two because the cheap plastic sliding cover gets in the way. The 7110 has an updated version of the game, which it calls Snake 2.

It is (arguably) worth noting that the scoring is based entirely on the speed at which you play the game. You are awarded one point per level of speed per dot you eat. Since the map is of finite size and the snake grows one unit in length for each dot eaten, level 9 play is essential for maximum possible score.

As remarked above, the game is over when the snake collides with its own tail or any of the walls. However, before this death happens, the game pauses for 2 or 3 frames. To see this, run at the wall, and pause a short while before turning away. The snake will appear to stand still for a while. This effect can be used to 'guide' the snake and allows an accuracy of turning that is much harder to achieve without this pause.

Of course, for an obsessive such as myself, I have for some time wanted to achieve the maximum possible score.
The play area in Nokia Snake is 20 'units' wide by 11 tall (giving 220 units of living space) but the snake is already 10 units long when it starts, leaving space to eat 210 dots at 9 points each, for a theoretical maximum score of 1890.

My problem with achieving this score is due to the tactic which I developed early on in my Nokia Snake career. At the beginning of the game when the snake is a mere baby, it is easy to dart around the screen heading directly for each dot as it appears, but as the snake grows longer it makes sense to organise things a little better. The technique I developed was to weave left and right across the screen in a wide S shape, being careful to leave at a little bit of space at the right hand side. Then upon reaching the top of the screen, diving down the right hand side and continuing with the snaking in S formation. Eventually, it ends up looking something like this (the '8' represents the snake's head):